


To Light One Candle From Another

by Dark_Ruby_Regalia



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Featuring the worst snow angel two grown men have ever made, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 12:38:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19812472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dark_Ruby_Regalia/pseuds/Dark_Ruby_Regalia
Summary: When the winter nights settle in long and heavy and ten years spent in darkness is too fresh in the mind, a snow-daemon festival filled with candles and hot drinks helps keep spirits lifted in anticipation of spring. Ignis and Noctis enjoy their quiet moment in the crowd.





	To Light One Candle From Another

The great wall had been left ruinous, and for lack of need of its safety, was being taken down daily alongside the salvage of Insomnia. Entire limits of the city simply  _ ended  _ now - abruptly, at nothing. The stretch of land between streets and sea were barren still, stripped of any overstory by ten years without sunlight. The grey trunks of lost trees stood in defiance of their own death. With snow collected on their staunch limbs, they could almost be thought to simply sleep, waiting for another spring - as everyone was - while the nights grew long and a psychic unease permeated each short day between them.

These darkest nights of winter were hard on the mind. Too reminiscent of what was still fresh and sharp; all the unhealed wounds of memory. The cold season seemed more comfortable than it should as it lay itself down, freezing the soil. Tonight it condensed an exhalation of breath into wisps of lost heat, like a spectre lingering on the brief embrace of a body, before being set free again; an aggregate mimic of unity scattered to the winds.

“An old city with a new view,” Ignis mused, as his eyes drifted far across the snowsheet and the passage of waters beyond. “It hardly feels familiar anymore.” A froth of waves crashing at the base of distant cliffs gave the borderline of Leide away; the roar of wind and water swell snatching their voices from the air before sound travelled far.

“It hasn’t stopped being weird, has it,” Noct added, a little lost, a little distant.

Ignis shook his head in answer. A few long seconds slipped by. “Come,” he said, and he held out his hand. “It’s time to conjure some daemon from all this snow.”

After so many years apart, their fingers had well remembered how to twine together. They interleaved again now like they’d never known more than a second alone. A squeeze from one in acknowledgement; another in response. Didn’t matter much who was who, so long as their edges blurred together.

“Did we get gloomy,” Noct asked, leaning sideways to bump shoulders. 

“Almost, but not quite,” was Ignis’ light response. He pushed Noct's wayward hair aside to lay a warm kiss high on wind-chilled cheek, and he stayed there a while, closing his eyes, enjoying the flutter of Noct's lashes against his lips. “It’s too beautiful a midnight to get caught up in the past.”

Their pathway sloped off towards the drop to shore, then followed it faithfully a safe distance from the precarious edge. They trundled along without hurry, warm in their thick coats and each other’s easy company. Ahead, stretched out across the flat planes of fresh powder, a gathering of people were stooped to the ground, scraping together handfuls of snow, busy with building. Others stood back to admire their work, wandering amidst what had become a field of small, snowy growths. Each was unique, though in their hundreds, an average formed: daemon shapes, stylised by the limitations of a mound of snow and mittened fingers, each carved out in the middle to harbour a candle. It was quite beautiful, as the glowing mounds flickered together: fire, contained, one of the simplest pleasures; the mesmerising lure of a naked flame. Dazzling, as each flame was amplified by glinting compact surfaces formed by so many focused hands, each sculpting their small contribution to a multiplying whole. 

This was an old tradition re-worked for a new world. What came before felt too disconnected from what came after. What was now. For those that remained, ten whole years of in-between rendered past traditions inaccessible. Not  _ for them  _ any more. So what used to be their mid-winter snow-lantern festival had, by necessity and fresh superstition, evolved. It became newly symbolic of a great many things: a celebration of survival; a yearning for spring. Fear of the eternal dark; a ward against its recurrence. A way to share what was lost to the monsters of the scourge, and to dispel the onerous haunt of shared fears. It could have been a little dark, a little grim - and, in parts, and deep in hearts, perhaps it was - but the lanterns strung between bony branches kept faces bright, and the excitement of being out at such an hour kept the chill from the flesh by sheer force of will. And good food. And warm drink. 

“What are your thoughts on a spot?” Ignis asked. 

“Somewhere on the outskirts,” Noct replied. High scarves and low hoods had mostly disguised them both, and Noct enjoyed walking through the cheerful crowds unknown for a while. One of them. He wanted to hold onto that as long as he could. 

So they circled the growing horde, found themselves a patch of snow relatively untrodden, and set to work, each scooping a daemon into being, side by side. Ignis was carefully constructing his by some schematic that was evidently unrolling in his mind, whereas Noct was, as usual, doing things by feel - every decision made for the moment, a response to the decision before. As his concentration grew, so did his silence. Ignis knew he’d be biting his lip as he narrowed his focus - a habit retained for as long as they’d known each other. At the thought, Ignis was charmed anew - a swell of fresh fondness heating his chest, despite his knees buried in snow as he kneeled. He watched Noct work for a while, unnoticed in his attention as the final details of the snow-daemon formed themselves beneath Noct’s fingers.

A warm and muffled laugh suddenly burst through Noct's scarf. His eyes made his smile visible, though there was exasperation in his voice when he spoke. “Why is yours a masterpiece and mine a disaster?”

“I had to look at them for ten years longer than you did.”

“Unfair advantage.”

“You’re welcome to take all my persistent nightmares, if building a better snow daemon would please you that much.”

“You know I would, Iggy,” Noct said, sincere to countless fathoms. They found a heavy eye contact to seek comfort in. 

Ignis paused under the gravity. “I know,” was all he need say. The moment passed. “They say an artist works their likeness into each of their creations,” he teased, making an exaggerated show of comparison between the very few of Noct’s features bared above layers of soft wool and the misshapen pile of snow at his feet. He was rewarded with an eye roll and a hastily formed snowball that sacrificed itself to the scar on his brow. 

The wild glint of mischief that sparked in Noct's eyes instantly gave way to his growing sense of guilt. “Thankfully I’m no artist,” he said, and he fell into Ignis’ lap, hands all about Ignis’ face to brush the snow away before it beaded to water on his skin. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, though he was laughing again, pulling the coils of his scarf loose from around his neck to free his lips for a kiss. They both toppled over in each other’s arms, flat on the ground. 

“This will be the single worst snow angel two grown men have ever made,” Ignis managed between the flurry of new distractions. 

“We’ll destroy the evidence.”

“And whatever is left will melt soon enough. We’ll get away with it.”

“Although the world will be forever deprived a perfect imprint of your butt.”

“A tragedy.”

“Are you getting ice down your collar too?”

“Quite a lot actually.”

“Maybe we should light our candles and find some of that hot spiced wine.”

Not without a groan of reluctance, they disentangled themselves and turned attention back to their daemon. After bringing the beasts to being, it seemed a strangely violent act to dig a hollow from their middle to place a candle in. Noct hesitated before gouging, noting that Ignis didn’t. So he clawed out a few handfuls of snow, then smoothed and shaped the hole into something of an archway, flattening the base inside. Just as he was ready for a candle, Ignis was beside him with one in hand. 

“We’re supposed to light ours from the flame of another,” Ignis reminded. 

“I bet you have matches on you just in case,” Noct said, straightening the wick in the wax as best he could. 

Ignis shook his pocket for the telltale rattle of matchsticks in a box, his grin glinting in the lamplight. 

“You’re a heathen,” Noct teased. He bent to a nearby daemon and held his wick to its candle, watching as the tip turned black as it took on a flame of its own. But beyond the safety of the hollow, it blew right out. Determined this time, he tried again, protecting it with a close-cupped hand and the hunch of his body until he delivered it safely back to the yawn of his own sculpture. Then Ignis, with his own effortless patience, lit his candle from Noct’s. 

Their fingers wove together again while they watched their candles settle in. Their daemon came alive, animated by the shadows they cast against each other, their backs turned to the wind to shelter the fire in their throats. Two of many, all facing the same way, somewhat merry and grotesque, luminous and ephemeral.

Noct leaned to Ignis’ ear, conspiratorial, brimming with a new fervor. “...Is it spiced wine time yet?” he asked, a little sly, well aware he was encroaching on the due honours of ceremony. 

Ignis was, as always, his best accomplice. “I’m sure we’ve stood here reverently for an appropriate length of time.” 

With that they sifted back through the crowds in search of a large mug filled with something hot and curling steam, and from there they stumbled back home as tiredness lured them to the cocoon of pillows and blankets. Long after the candles had sputtered out with the dawn, they were still fast asleep in their own bed, harboured from the sallow light of morning by tight-closed drapes at the window. 

Over days and weeks the snow-daemon would disappear, windblown and covered by fresh falls, finally melting to nothing when the seasons turned and the estranged sun finally bought with it the thaws of a new spring. 


End file.
